Snow Leopard "Synchronize with google" out of the box?

[Ara]

I installed Snow Leopard yesterday, and saw that both the address book
and iCal offer automatic, 2-way synchronization of contacts with
Google. Can you tell me how Spanning Sync is better than the out of
the box Snow Leopard synchronization?

[Ara]

I found that in Snow Leopard's Address Book, there is an option to
synchronize with google under Preferences -> Accounts. With iCal, you
can add an account under Preferences -> Accounts -> + -> Account Type
"Google". Both of these seem to have good, 2 way synchronization.
I'm not trying to drop a bomb on Spanning Sync, but can you tell me
specifically why Spanning Sync is better than the built in Snow
Leopard options? Or has the need for Spanning Sync come to an end
with Snow Leopard?

[mapin0518]

I'm wondering the same... does Spanning Sync offer any advantage over
the built-in Snow Leopard sync?

I hope so because I have a lifetime license to Spanning Sync :)

But one less clutter on my menu bar using up resources is always
welcome...

[DYP]

the fact that noone from SpanningSync is responding to these questions
is making me think that there's a good chance that Snow Leopard has
indeed made Spanningsync obsolete.

[Elie]

Maybe they are looking into seeing the pros and cons of Snow Leopard
sync.

[Larry Hendricks]

Hi,

We were hoping that Apple would publish some documentation on this new
feature that we could point to, but it doesn't look like they're going
to. From what we can tell, the iCal/Google Calendar syncing support in
Snow Leopard is nearly identical to what it was in Leopard. The main
difference seems to be that they've added a "Google" account type to
the preferences window rather than making the user select "CalDAV" and
then entering the impossible-to-guess server address (as documented at
http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99358#ical).

It's still CalDAV-based, the CalDAV calendars are still read-only on
the iPhone, they don't sync at all with MobileMe, and each calendar
still occupies its own group in iCal which many people find
cluttering.

(To be clear, I'm talking about the "Google" item in iCal's accounts
window and not Exchange support. Exchange support, which is completely
new in Snow Leopard, requires an Exchange server.)

So I'd say the advantages of Spanning Sync continue to be:

* Fully editable calendars on the iPhone/iPod Touch
* Calendars sync with Mobile Me -- this is crucial if you use Mobile
Me to sync the iPhone over-the-air
* Supports read-only Google calendars
* Integration with existing calendars in iCal
* Smarter alarm syncing -- e.g. you'll get two emails from an email
alarm with Apple's system; only one with ours
* One-way syncing
* Free tech support

You can read more about the advantages of Spanning Sync over Apple's
CalDAV syncing in these two blog posts:

http://blog.spanningsync.com/2008/12/how-does-google-caldav-compare-to-spanning-sync.html
http://blog.spanningsync.com/2008/12/users-favor-spanning-sync-over-googles-caldav.html

Thanks
--
Larry Hendricks
la...@spanningsync.com
http://spanningsync.com

[djfiander]

If the Snow Leopard support for Google calendar syncing is the same as
that in Tiger, then it's also not possible to use Missing Sync, or
other third-party software, to sync the Google calendars with your
smart phone. You can sync your "main" Google calendar, but none of the
others.

- David

On Sep 2, 12:13 am, Larry Hendricks <larh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We were hoping that Apple would publish some documentation on this new
> feature that we could point to, but it doesn't look like they're going
> to. From what we can tell, the iCal/Google Calendar syncing support in
> Snow Leopard is nearly identical to what it was in Leopard. The main
> difference seems to be that they've added a "Google" account type to
> the preferences window rather than making the user select "CalDAV" and

> then entering the impossible-to-guess server address (as documented athttp://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=993...).

>
> It's still CalDAV-based, the CalDAV calendars are still read-only on
> the iPhone, they don't sync at all with MobileMe, and each calendar
> still occupies its own group in iCal which many people find
> cluttering.
>
> (To be clear, I'm talking about the "Google" item in iCal's accounts
> window and not Exchange support. Exchange support, which is completely
> new in Snow Leopard, requires an Exchange server.)
>
> So I'd say the advantages of Spanning Sync continue to be:
>
> * Fully editable calendars on the iPhone/iPod Touch
> * Calendars sync with Mobile Me -- this is crucial if you use Mobile
> Me to sync the iPhone over-the-air
> * Supports read-only Google calendars
> * Integration with existing calendars in iCal
> * Smarter alarm syncing -- e.g. you'll get two emails from an email
> alarm with Apple's system; only one with ours
> * One-way syncing
> * Free tech support
>
> You can read more about the advantages of Spanning Sync over Apple's
> CalDAV syncing in these two blog posts:
>

> http://blog.spanningsync.com/2008/12/how-does-google-caldav-compare-t...http://blog.spanningsync.com/2008/12/users-favor-spanning-sync-over-g...
>
> Thanks
> --
> Larry Hendricks
> la...@spanningsync.comhttp://spanningsync.com

[Ara]

Hi Larry,

Thanks for your response. In my basic testing, I was able to get two
way syncing of multiple calendars with the out of the box Snow Leopard
solution.

These are the advantages you wrote about:

> * Fully editable calendars on the iPhone/iPod Touch

If I have my iPod Touch set to sync with google, then the calendar is
fully editable (even with the out of the box Snow Leopard solution
between Mac and Google)

> * Calendars sync with Mobile Me -- this is crucial if you use Mobile Me to sync the iPhone over-the-air

Don't have Mobile Me, so I can't talk about this one.

> * Supports read-only Google calendars

I thought this could be done with CalDav?

> * Integration with existing calendars in iCal

I think the out of the box solution with Snow Leopard supports this,
but I'd have to double check

> * Smarter alarm syncing -- e.g. you'll get two emails from an email alarm with Apple's system; only one with ours

I don't use e-mail alarms, so I can't comment.
> * One-way syncing
Isn't this the same as your point above, "Supports read-only Google
calendars"
> * Free tech support
Always a good thing!

I wish Apple did release some documentation on this feature; it puts
you and the rest of us in a position where we have to guess, instead
of them just laying out how it works.

Larry, you didn't make any comments regarding the built in contact
sync with Snow Leopard. Have you had the chance to test it, and how
is Spanning Sync's contact sync better than the Snow Leopard solution?

I'm a happy user of Spanning Sync, and I can appreciate what a
terrible position Apple is putting some of its developers in. The
uncertainty of when features will be added (plus arbitrary iPhone app
rejections) must give Apple developers a great deal of anxiety. I'm
sorry you have to go through this.

Thanks,
Ara

On Sep 2, 12:13 am, Larry Hendricks <larh...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> We were hoping that Apple would publish some documentation on this new
> feature that we could point to, but it doesn't look like they're going
> to. From what we can tell, the iCal/Google Calendar syncing support in
> Snow Leopard is nearly identical to what it was in Leopard. The main
> difference seems to be that they've added a "Google" account type to
> the preferences window rather than making the user select "CalDAV" and

> then entering the impossible-to-guess server address (as documented athttp://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=993...).

>
> It's still CalDAV-based, the CalDAV calendars are still read-only on
> the iPhone, they don't sync at all with MobileMe, and each calendar
> still occupies its own group in iCal which many people find
> cluttering.
>
> (To be clear, I'm talking about the "Google" item in iCal's accounts
> window and not Exchange support. Exchange support, which is completely
> new in Snow Leopard, requires an Exchange server.)
>
> So I'd say the advantages of Spanning Sync continue to be:
>
> * Fully editable calendars on the iPhone/iPod Touch
> * Calendars sync with Mobile Me -- this is crucial if you use Mobile
> Me to sync the iPhone over-the-air
> * Supports read-only Google calendars
> * Integration with existing calendars in iCal
> * Smarter alarm syncing -- e.g. you'll get two emails from an email
> alarm with Apple's system; only one with ours
> * One-way syncing
> * Free tech support
>
> You can read more about the advantages of Spanning Sync over Apple's
> CalDAV syncing in these two blog posts:
>

> http://blog.spanningsync.com/2008/12/how-does-google-caldav-compare-t...http://blog.spanningsync.com/2008/12/users-favor-spanning-sync-over-g...
>
> Thanks
> --
> Larry Hendricks

> la...@spanningsync.comhttp://spanningsync.com

[Ara]

FWIW:
http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2009/09/improved-contact-sync-in-snow-leopard.html
http://www.google.com/support/contactsync/

> >http://blog.spanningsync.com/2008/12/how-does-google-caldav-compare-t......

[Joe DeBiso]

This is driving me nuts! Several times a day spanning sync pegs my cpu and
take up all available memory. All I can do to recover is reboot. I can't
even force quit it. Some time it's fine for a day or two then BAM. How do
I begin to diagnose this? I am running 10.5.8 on a mac book pro with 4gig
ram.

HELP PLEASE! I can cook an egg on my computer!

[Ara]

Joe, since you have an issue that is completely unrelated to this
thread, you should start your own thread instead of trying to hijack
this one. To do that go to:
http://groups.google.com/group/spanningsync?hl=en
Then click on "+ new post"

[Larry Hendricks]

Hi Ara,

On Sep 2, 5:58 am, Ara <arakaraman...@gmail.com> wrote:

> If I have my iPod Touch set to sync with google, then the calendar is
> fully editable (even with the out of the box Snow Leopard solution
> between Mac and Google)

Are you sure? Try this:

* Create a new event in iCal in the CalDAV calendar that you sync to
the iPod Touch
* Connect the iPod Touch and sync
* Open the Calendar app and select the event which just sunc

Do you see an edit button? I don't (iPhone 3GS running the latest
updates…)

> * Integration with existing calendars in iCal
>
> I think the out of the box solution with Snow Leopard supports this,
> but I'd have to double check

What I mean is, they show up in the "normal" list of iCal calendars
instead of having their own group where the name shows up twice. And
also that you can sync with the calendars that already exist in iCal
instead of needing to create a new calendar.

> * One-way syncing
>
> Isn't this the same as your point above, "Supports read-only Google
> calendars"

Nope. Spanning Sync allows you to sync two calendars which aren't read-
only in only one direction, thus protecting one from ever getting
modified through sync. This is useful, for example, if you share
calendars with others but don't want them modifying your iCal/iPhone
versions of the calendar.

> * Free tech support
>
> Always a good thing!

:-)

Cheers

[Ara]

Hi Larry,

I'm hopefully going to test all of this over the weekend and report
back. Do you have any comments regarding the contacts sync?

Thanks,
Ara

[Larry Hendricks]

On Sep 3, 3:36 am, Ara <arakaraman...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Larry,
>

> Do you have any comments regarding the contacts sync?
>

According to the link you provided (thanks!) they added syncing of
images and restricted syncing to the My Contacts group. Other than
that it seems the same as in Leopard.

[Luhmann]

It is true if you sync with google via CalDAV and then sync these to
your iPhone via iTunes. However, it is not true if you sync to Google
directly from you iPhone via Google's Exchange servers. If you do this
you get on-the-fly sync between Google and your iPhone without having
to connect to your computer AND you can edit your Google calendars
directly on your iPhone. SpanningSync seems to selectively pick the
one scenario (iTunes sync to Google CalDAV) which does not work, when
this is not the best way to use Google Calendar on your iPhone. Nor do
they mention this alternative setup.

However, despite the fact that I find Calendar sync works better this
way, I still find myself preferring SpanningSync for AddressBook sync
on Snow Leopard. Why? Because when I tried to use the Snow Leopard
method it wanted to create hundreds of duplicate contacts and contact
information on my Mac, without giving me any control over how this was
to be done, certainly no one-way sync. So, for now, SpanningSync still
seems to have some advantages for AddressBook sync.

-L